ORIGINAL: Plumbata
How would the load of "dipped honey" stay on the shovel? The angle doesn't quite look adequate enough for effective near-vertical usage within the confines of a deep and relatively narrow space, but I dunno, I'm not a honeydipper or anything.
Perhaps a view of the side profile would help, but the area where there is black on the handle was probably the primary gripping area, and if the angle of the shovel's head is such that it would be more or less flush with the ground while holding the handle where the black staining is, then I would wager that it was made to be a ditch-clearing tool. I've been reading an 1867 book called "Draining for Profit and Health" and the trenching shovels have very long handles and angled heads like yours, though the metal shovel heads depicted in the book are more narrow and elongated, kinda like a tree shovel, versus the style of your shovel.
I guess it would make sense if the shovel was used to scrape the waste from a privy into a bucket or something, but it was probably more of a functional innovation on the part of the person who used it rather than a tool specifically produced for clearing out massive loads of crap. Just my 2 cents I guess.
I hope that you figure out what it is!